Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

You could naturally have kids who are 364 days apart. Redshirting adds a bit to this, but it’s usually not that far off — kids with Aug bdays holding off. Your kid will be fine.

The problem comes in when kids are 14-18 month difference and the teachers are not looking at what's developmentally appropriate for too old for the grade kids as well as younger for the grade kids. My kid is absolutely fine but we've had teachers with unrealistic expectations when comparing the students, some who were 12-18 months older.

+1, and this exacerbates an existing issue, which is that kindergarten curriculums are already increasingly not developmentally appropriate, with too many expectations for kids to sit quietly in chairs and work independently or focus on worksheets or instruction for long periods of time. This is not something that is reasonable to expect (or force on) the average 5 year old, but redshirting conceals how inappropriate these expectations are by putting a certain number of kids in the classroom who are a year older (actually 1st graders) and therefore do better with these parameters.

What we should be doing is shifting kindergarten expectations across the board to better meat 5/6 year old kids where they are at. Instead of leaving it to parents to hold their kids back in order on a case by case basis.

-1 of course K is developmentally appropriate. My child technically started at 4 and had no issue doing the work or sitting. Why? Because we, the preschools and others adequately prepared the child. Sounds like you didn't prepare your child well if they were struggling that much. If kids have developmental delays all the more reason to start them so they are with age appropriate peers with an age appropriate curriculum and IEP/SPED services that they parents most likely aren't doing privately.

My very-young-for-grade kid started kindergarten on time and cried every single day. She hated kindergarten. She'd sob and sob that all she wanted to do was play and didn't want to go to school. It was too much sitting and listening for her. She was well behaved and had done three years of a good preschool, but was absolutely miserable. First grade was also pretty tough. She'd matured more by 2nd grade, but those first two years were super hard. She's always been far above grade level academically, so we didn't hold her back, but at a big emotional cost. I wish K and 1st were less academic and more play. She would have done much better.

+1, we sent on time because we couldn't afford to hold back and because there was no reason to except age. She was above grade academically and could meet the behavioral expectations. It just sucked.

My observation of a class with redshirted and nonredshirted kids is that the issue is really not lack of academic preparedness. It's that children this age cannot spend as much time on academics as K now requires of them. And also, I'm not really convinced the extra time on phonics and math benefits them. The kids are tired, ansty, anxious for more social interaction, and need more releases (physical release via more exercise and outdoor time, but also creative release and playing -- just more chance to relax and not be working so hard).

I think the intense focus on academics tends to bore kids like mine who understand the concepts quickly an don't really need to spend 3 hours a day drilling phonics and math -- they need some exposure and then a chance to explore on their own. Meanwhile, the kids who don't get these concepts quickly don't benefit either -- they are spending. significant portion of their school day feeling frustrated by concepts they aren't getting. They need more play-based learning that help them get familiar with concepts in a less pressure-filled way. While my kid would whiz through a worksheet and then get bored, these kids would struggle with the worksheet and get frustrated. It's honestly a narrow group of kids in the middle who are engaged with this sort of approach.

I wish we'd been able to afford Montessori for early elementary. I don't love everything about it, but for a kid like mine who is self-motivated and picks things up easily, this would have allowed for a lot more fun and freedom at that age. I still feel like we're addressing mood issue that emerged during K, when she just got so bored and angry, and started pushing back hard on the myriad of rules (some of which truly were arbitrary and dumb, frankly).

I don't regret no redshirting. I regret sending my kid to public elementary school at all, but we didn't have a choice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

Well…How is it fair for a kid with a late august birthday to be in a class with a kid with a September (of the previous year) birthday?

Why is it okay for the kid to be with kids who are 12 months older, but 13 months older is suddenly is UNFAIR!!!? There’s nothing magical about a 12 month span. Why not start complaining when kids are 11 months older than yours?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the OP and ditto PP-
What is being asked if kids in k is NOT developmentally appropriate. And that keeps being the case as the kids get older. What the curriculum is pushing is not based on what kids can do at the age- ask elementary teachers. If the curriculum and behavior expectations are not deveopmebtally appropriate then I can choose to start my kid a little late. It has nothing to do with you and your child. It isn’t about being competitive. It is about the curriculum and instruction matching what kids need. It is on you making this a competition among kids. I’m simply thinking of my child’s educational experience.

People throw around this phrase "developmentally appropriate" as if all kids were as dumb as theirs. There are many many 4 year olds who can read and do math at a 1st grade level. The K standards are fine. If you hold back you kid from starting K because youre afraid he wont be able to learn to read or add, then work on those skills over the summer before K starts.

K is just one year of school there are 12 more years to come that other think and plan ahead for. Plus you have no idea what the reasons are people are holding back. Asinine advice that workbooks are the answer.

+1 as a teacher it is painful to see that short-sighted response

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

Well…How is it fair for a kid with a late august birthday to be in a class with a kid with a September (of the previous year) birthday?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the OP and ditto PP-
What is being asked if kids in k is NOT developmentally appropriate. And that keeps being the case as the kids get older. What the curriculum is pushing is not based on what kids can do at the age- ask elementary teachers. If the curriculum and behavior expectations are not deveopmebtally appropriate then I can choose to start my kid a little late. It has nothing to do with you and your child. It isn’t about being competitive. It is about the curriculum and instruction matching what kids need. It is on you making this a competition among kids. I’m simply thinking of my child’s educational experience.

People throw around this phrase "developmentally appropriate" as if all kids were as dumb as theirs. There are many many 4 year olds who can read and do math at a 1st grade level. The K standards are fine. If you hold back you kid from starting K because youre afraid he wont be able to learn to read or add, then work on those skills over the summer before K starts.

K is just one year of school there are 12 more years to come that other think and plan ahead for. Plus you have no idea what the reasons are people are holding back. Asinine advice that workbooks are the answer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

You could naturally have kids who are 364 days apart. Redshirting adds a bit to this, but it’s usually not that far off — kids with Aug bdays holding off. Your kid will be fine.

The problem comes in when kids are 14-18 month difference and the teachers are not looking at what's developmentally appropriate for too old for the grade kids as well as younger for the grade kids. My kid is absolutely fine but we've had teachers with unrealistic expectations when comparing the students, some who were 12-18 months older.

+1, and this exacerbates an existing issue, which is that kindergarten curriculums are already increasingly not developmentally appropriate, with too many expectations for kids to sit quietly in chairs and work independently or focus on worksheets or instruction for long periods of time. This is not something that is reasonable to expect (or force on) the average 5 year old, but redshirting conceals how inappropriate these expectations are by putting a certain number of kids in the classroom who are a year older (actually 1st graders) and therefore do better with these parameters.

What we should be doing is shifting kindergarten expectations across the board to better meat 5/6 year old kids where they are at. Instead of leaving it to parents to hold their kids back in order on a case by case basis.

-1 of course K is developmentally appropriate. My child technically started at 4 and had no issue doing the work or sitting. Why? Because we, the preschools and others adequately prepared the child. Sounds like you didn't prepare your child well if they were struggling that much. If kids have developmental delays all the more reason to start them so they are with age appropriate peers with an age appropriate curriculum and IEP/SPED services that they parents most likely aren't doing privately.

My very-young-for-grade kid started kindergarten on time and cried every single day. She hated kindergarten. She'd sob and sob that all she wanted to do was play and didn't want to go to school. It was too much sitting and listening for her. She was well behaved and had done three years of a good preschool, but was absolutely miserable. First grade was also pretty tough. She'd matured more by 2nd grade, but those first two years were super hard. She's always been far above grade level academically, so we didn't hold her back, but at a big emotional cost. I wish K and 1st were less academic and more play. She would have done much better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get redshirting for kids who are developmentally behind but in most cases, its just parents trying to give them unfair advantage. Same parents falsely claim learning disabilities and get them free tutoring or extra time on tests.

Falsely claim? How would you know? Are you saying schools, doctors, and other parents are colluding to screw your little precious? That's some extra level paranoia you've got going on there. Just get your kid whatever help they need and they too can do well in school and get what they need to succeed.

It's been said (without support) on this thread several times that parents (always, often, primarily, . . . ) redshirt for some advantage, and this works to the disadvantage of the law-abiding families who start their kids at the earliest opportunity. In real life, I don't see either the advantage, or that this is the motivation. The parents I know who redshirted generally did it for specific kids (that is, not for each of their kids) based on specific needs of those kids. Any competitive sport around here is based on date of birth, and standardized testing is also adjusted for birthdate. My redshirted kid hates competitive sports, and I never aspired for him to be otherwise. So, what is the advantage that you think these nefarious parents are getting for their kids? Is it just that the redshirts have a leg-up at recess? If so, I hope you can muster enough self-awareness to see how petty this is. Proficiency at the jungle gym won't get you far, and there is almost certainly going to be a point in your kid's life when your kid feels bad for not measuring up. Not measuring up is a fact of life, and the playing field is unlevel in all kinds of ways. If this one irks you, then hold your kid back a grade. In any event, your non-redshirted kid will be fine.

You did not redshirt - redshirting is for older kids and sports. You held back your child. Not all standardized tests are age based nor are all sports, some are, some aren't. I truly hope you got your child the therapies they needed during that hold back year.

I’m not the PP but do you think your clearly insincere and profoundly nasty last line makes anti-redshirters look good? I don’t understand why anti-redshirters always feel compelled to attack vulnerable parents in these threads.

And you are also just wrong. The PP did redshirt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no plans to redshirt. But I have a few thoughts

1) I can understand why people with notably immature children just shy of the cutoff redshirt. My son is a January baby, so he's on the older side (this is DC, 9/30 cutoff) and he felt just barely ready for PK3. If he was an August or September baby, I honestly don't know what we would have done. He walked late, he talked late, he potty trained late. The transition to PK3 was really rough on him at 3.5. This past spring he just was not ready, full stop. My daughter, on the other hand, is an August baby, and I have absolutely no qualms about sending her next year. She's honestly closer to ready now (at just over 2) than my son was when he'd just turned 3. Kid are different, and if you happen to have a slow to mature kid with a badly timed birthday, that really sucks and I feel for you.

2) There's huge class issues here. Especially in DC. Yes, our daughter will be ready, but if she wasn't? We'd honestly still probably have to send her. We can't spend $20k on another year of childcare when it's not absolutely necessary and there's a free option, whether it was best for her or not. So you've got to consider that side of it, too.

3) A lot of people just redshirt for the advantages and/or for not wanting their kid to be the youngest, and that's crappy. Someone has to be the youngest, suck it up.

Fully agree with all of this. I'm not anti-redshirting, but the way it plays out sometimes is, yes, unfair. And to respond to another PP -- of course other things are unfair. The world is not unfair. But redshirting is distinct from other aspects of unfairness in education, in that it's pretty easy to set a policy that makes redshirting hard, or makes it easy. It's really hard to address the impacts of income inequality on kids in public schools. But redshirting? It's pretty easy to create a policy that is anti-redshirt except in cases of developmental delays.

Question: would you support a ban on outside activities like Russian School of Math? Because those supplemental programs have a far more negative impact on poorer kids in a classroom than redshirting and they are also discretionary.

They don't have a negative impact. Any parent who wants to supplement can with free resources online or even workbooks from the dollar tree. We have one of the youngest and they did have significant developmental delays and one thing that helped was sending them so they'd have peer modeling.

They do harm the poorer kids who can’t access those kids significantly. In fact, there been lots of writing and analysis in professional educational literature about how outside programs like Russian School of Math skew teacher perceptions of adequate grade level mathematics. This is something that educators are struggling to address, and it’s a known and widespread issue. The reality is that outside supplemental mathematics and other programs significantly harm the classroom experience of other young children whose parents can’t afford or don’t know about supplemental math.

This is what I don’t understand about anti-redshirt parents. Every single one of the parents who I’ve known as being anti-redshirt in person (as in they’ve said something at some point over the years) engaged actively in parenting choices that are far, far more harmful to other children than redshirting. But they are totally blind to those. It’s a peculiar pattern. I suppose it is because the anti-redshirters are the people that Jeff once accurately characterized as the people who see education as some sort of Mad Max Thunderdome. That probably makes it hard for them to look at their own culpabilities with any sort of accuracy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the OP and ditto PP-
What is being asked if kids in k is NOT developmentally appropriate. And that keeps being the case as the kids get older. What the curriculum is pushing is not based on what kids can do at the age- ask elementary teachers. If the curriculum and behavior expectations are not deveopmebtally appropriate then I can choose to start my kid a little late. It has nothing to do with you and your child. It isn’t about being competitive. It is about the curriculum and instruction matching what kids need. It is on you making this a competition among kids. I’m simply thinking of my child’s educational experience.

Yes, in the short term, choosing to start your kid late is a good solution for your family.

In the long term, a policy that continues to push developmental inappropriate curriculum on ECE kids while somewhat liberally allowing parents who have the means to redshirt to do so, doesn't really fix the problem. It might fix your problem, but it doesn't fix the problem.

I will always choose what's best for my family. It's not my job to fix the problem, I'm just another cog in the wheel, trying to get by.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the OP and ditto PP-
What is being asked if kids in k is NOT developmentally appropriate. And that keeps being the case as the kids get older. What the curriculum is pushing is not based on what kids can do at the age- ask elementary teachers. If the curriculum and behavior expectations are not deveopmebtally appropriate then I can choose to start my kid a little late. It has nothing to do with you and your child. It isn’t about being competitive. It is about the curriculum and instruction matching what kids need. It is on you making this a competition among kids. I’m simply thinking of my child’s educational experience.

Yes, in the short term, choosing to start your kid late is a good solution for your family.

In the long term, a policy that continues to push developmental inappropriate curriculum on ECE kids while somewhat liberally allowing parents who have the means to redshirt to do so, doesn't really fix the problem. It might fix your problem, but it doesn't fix the problem.

In my experience, whatever systemic problem the schools have (and there are many), parents have to do the best for their child, while advocating to change the system. Even then, the system will resist change, but your child will not suffer in the meantime. Parents who don’t like school lunches can and should advocate for better lunches, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t pack lunches for their child in the meantime. My kids were in a school system with a lousy curriculum. I joined a curriculum committee, attended community forums, discussed it with school board candidates, etc., but I also addressed the gaps in my children’s education along the way.

Having children in a class they’re not ready for will not motivate the system to redesign the class, it will just make the child miserable, and if they are disruptive may make everyone else in the class miserable, as well. Parents should work together to make the system better, but they also have an obligation to look after the welfare of their child.

Anonymous wrote:To the OP and ditto PP-
What is being asked if kids in k is NOT developmentally appropriate. And that keeps being the case as the kids get older. What the curriculum is pushing is not based on what kids can do at the age- ask elementary teachers. If the curriculum and behavior expectations are not deveopmebtally appropriate then I can choose to start my kid a little late. It has nothing to do with you and your child. It isn’t about being competitive. It is about the curriculum and instruction matching what kids need. It is on you making this a competition among kids. I’m simply thinking of my child’s educational experience.

Yes, in the short term, choosing to start your kid late is a good solution for your family.

In the long term, a policy that continues to push developmental inappropriate curriculum on ECE kids while somewhat liberally allowing parents who have the means to redshirt to do so, doesn't really fix the problem. It might fix your problem, but it doesn't fix the problem.

To the OP and ditto PP-
What is being asked if kids in k is NOT developmentally appropriate. And that keeps being the case as the kids get older. What the curriculum is pushing is not based on what kids can do at the age- ask elementary teachers. If the curriculum and behavior expectations are not deveopmebtally appropriate then I can choose to start my kid a little late. It has nothing to do with you and your child. It isn’t about being competitive. It is about the curriculum and instruction matching what kids need. It is on you making this a competition among kids. I’m simply thinking of my child’s educational experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

You could naturally have kids who are 364 days apart. Redshirting adds a bit to this, but it’s usually not that far off — kids with Aug bdays holding off. Your kid will be fine.

The problem comes in when kids are 14-18 month difference and the teachers are not looking at what's developmentally appropriate for too old for the grade kids as well as younger for the grade kids. My kid is absolutely fine but we've had teachers with unrealistic expectations when comparing the students, some who were 12-18 months older.

+1, and this exacerbates an existing issue, which is that kindergarten curriculums are already increasingly not developmentally appropriate, with too many expectations for kids to sit quietly in chairs and work independently or focus on worksheets or instruction for long periods of time. This is not something that is reasonable to expect (or force on) the average 5 year old, but redshirting conceals how inappropriate these expectations are by putting a certain number of kids in the classroom who are a year older (actually 1st graders) and therefore do better with these parameters.

What we should be doing is shifting kindergarten expectations across the board to better meat 5/6 year old kids where they are at. Instead of leaving it to parents to hold their kids back in order on a case by case basis.

-1 of course K is developmentally appropriate. My child technically started at 4 and had no issue doing the work or sitting. Why? Because we, the preschools and others adequately prepared the child. Sounds like you didn't prepare your child well if they were struggling that much. If kids have developmental delays all the more reason to start them so they are with age appropriate peers with an age appropriate curriculum and IEP/SPED services that they parents most likely aren't doing privately.

What even are you talking about? No, asking children to sit quietly and do worksheets at 5 years old is not developmentally appropriate. It doesn't matter if the child CAN do this or not -- it's not good for them. Kindergarten used to be more play-based with more socialization, games, music and movement, and less direct academic instruction. But over the last 20 years, schools are increasingly shifting the 1st grade curriculum down to kindergarten, especially with regards to reading, due to parent pressure and uninformed media coverage about test scores (there is no evidence that teaching reading leads to higher ELA scores later, and in fact some indication that the opposite may be true).

No amount of preparation can magically make a 5 year old (or in your case, a 4 year old, poor kid) into a chid who should be sitting in a chair spending a significant part of his or her day learning math facts and sight words, but that's what kindergarten looks like in much of the country.

Which is one reason some parents redshirt, because it sucks. But instead of giving parents broad leeway to redshirt, we should return to the old kindergarten model, which used K as an opportunity to develop kids socio-emotional skills and prep them for the more intensive academic instruction they would begin in 1st.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get redshirting for kids who are developmentally behind but in most cases, its just parents trying to give them unfair advantage. Same parents falsely claim learning disabilities and get them free tutoring or extra time on tests.

Falsely claim? How would you know? Are you saying schools, doctors, and other parents are colluding to screw your little precious? That's some extra level paranoia you've got going on there. Just get your kid whatever help they need and they too can do well in school and get what they need to succeed.

It's been said (without support) on this thread several times that parents (always, often, primarily, . . . ) redshirt for some advantage, and this works to the disadvantage of the law-abiding families who start their kids at the earliest opportunity. In real life, I don't see either the advantage, or that this is the motivation. The parents I know who redshirted generally did it for specific kids (that is, not for each of their kids) based on specific needs of those kids. Any competitive sport around here is based on date of birth, and standardized testing is also adjusted for birthdate. My redshirted kid hates competitive sports, and I never aspired for him to be otherwise. So, what is the advantage that you think these nefarious parents are getting for their kids? Is it just that the redshirts have a leg-up at recess? If so, I hope you can muster enough self-awareness to see how petty this is. Proficiency at the jungle gym won't get you far, and there is almost certainly going to be a point in your kid's life when your kid feels bad for not measuring up. Not measuring up is a fact of life, and the playing field is unlevel in all kinds of ways. If this one irks you, then hold your kid back a grade. In any event, your non-redshirted kid will be fine.

You did not redshirt - redshirting is for older kids and sports. You held back your child. Not all standardized tests are age based nor are all sports, some are, some aren't. I truly hope you got your child the therapies they needed during that hold back year.

Anonymous wrote:It’s only unfair if you sent your kid to school to WIN AT EDUCATION, not to learn.

Multi-age classrooms are more normal throughout history than those arbitrarily confined to a 365 day span. Yes, there are notoriously some (hi, Natural Law Lady!) who believe that the earth’s rotation around the sun creates a natural law regarding the correct age span in a classroom. But there is actually no particular pedagogical reason to choose a 12 month span rather than 8 months or 14 months.

Multi-age classrooms are different as kids are taught at their grade level.